Purpose and Sponsorship

CDS Connect is a Web site intended to help audiences transform evidence-based clinical practice guidelines and best practices into computer-enabled interventions (clinical decision support or CDS) to improve health care. CDS Connect is an initiative founded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in partnership with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Alliance to Modernize Healthcare, a federally-funded research and development center operated by the MITRE Corporation. AHRQ sponsors and maintains CDS Connect pursuant to statutory authorization to broadly disseminate patient-centered outcomes research findings, including incorporating those findings into clinical practices through the use of CDS. The guidelines and research evidence referenced on this site are the products of named organizations that are solely responsible for their content. The authors and publishers of related CDS materials (“artifacts”) are identified throughout the site.

Intended Audience

The informational offerings presented on this site are intended primarily for the following audiences:

• Physicians, nurses, and other health care professionals and provider organizations
• Developers and vendors of health information technology, such as electronic health records, clinical decision support systems, and other health care management software
• Health plans, health systems, health care organizations, hospitals, and integrated health care delivery systems
• Medical specialty and professional societies
• Researchers
• Federal, State, and local government health care policymakers and specialists

Other Audiences Including Patients

If you are a patient and are accessing this site, you should understand that the information presented is intended primarily for the use of health care professionals in the provision of care, or for the joint use of health care professionals and patients in health care settings. You should seek assistance from a health care professional when interpreting these materials and applying them to your own health care, or in other individual cases.

Disclaimers

Clinical Decision Support Disclaimer

CDS Connect contributor clinical practice guidelines (“guidelines”) and related CDS artifacts (collectively referred to as “CDS”), are not fixed protocols that must be followed, but are intended for health care professionals and providers to consider. While CDS identifies and describes generally recommended courses of intervention, it is not intended to substitute for the advice of a physician or other knowledgeable health care professional or provider. Individual patients may require different treatments from those specified in CDS. CDS is not entirely inclusive or exclusive of all methods of reasonable care that can obtain/produce the same results. Although CDS can be developed to take into account variations in clinical settings, resources, or common patient characteristics, it cannot address the unique needs of each patient nor the combination of resources available to a particular community or health care professional or provider. Deviations from CDS may be justified by individual circumstances. Thus, CDS must be applied based on individual patient needs using professional judgment.

Liability Disclaimer

With respect to the information available from this site, neither AHRQ nor its contractors, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, including the warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose, or assume any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, clinical efficacy or value of any such information or any apparatus, product, or process described or referenced in CDS Connect material or in material at other sites linked to this Web site. In addition, AHRQ and its contractors cannot endorse, or appear to endorse, derivative or excerpted materials, and cannot be held liable for the content or use of adapted products that are incorporated on other Web sites. Any adaptations of these electronic documents and resources must include a disclaimer to this effect. Advertising or implied endorsement for any commercial products or services is strictly prohibited.

Endorsement Disclaimer

Reference on this Web site to any specific commercial products, process, service, manufacturer, company, or trademark does not constitute its endorsement or recommendation by AHRQ or its contractors. As an agency of the U.S. Government, AHRQ cannot endorse or appear to endorse any specific commercial products or services.

Permission to Reproduce Content

Permission and restrictions regarding reproduction and downloading of respective documents and files are specific to each CDS artifact and related materials available through CDS Connect. Please read carefully and comply with specific notices on downloading and reproducing CDS Connect content. Third-party materials available from this site are not necessarily in the public domain, and may be protected under U.S. and foreign copyright laws. Permission from the developer to reproduce or to disseminate further may be required. AHRQ and the current Governor are not responsible for the misuse of restricted rights materials made available through CDS Connect for limited purposes.

Site Protection and Monitoring Notice Permission to Reproduce Content

To assure the integrity of information on this site and to make it responsive to public needs and demand requirements, AHRQ will monitor system access against actions to disable these online services and against deliberate efforts to gain unauthorized access to restricted portions of this Web site. By accessing this site you are consenting to system monitoring for law enforcement and other purposes. AHRQ does not restrict linked sites from obtaining information about visitors to their sites.

Links to Other Sites

Our Web site has links to Federal agencies, guideline and CDS developing and submitting organizations, and selected links to other Web resources. Once you link to another site, you are subject to the privacy policy of that site. AHRQ is not responsible for the availability or content of these external sites, nor does AHRQ endorse, warrant, or guarantee the products, services, or information described or offered at these other Internet sites. Users cannot assume that the external sites will abide by the same Privacy Policy to which AHRQ adheres.